Our telescope

Planetarium plans

Please see the news below for the current status on our exciting plans to build a planetarium at Sherwood Observatory. The background picture here is a model of the site as it is today, showing the observatory in the foreground and an old reservoir behind.

The public survey on our proposals to build a planetarium next to our observatory has now closed. Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to complete it. We have had a great response from schools, the Scout Association and members of the public. We are particularly encouraged by the number of responses from schools indicating that they would like to send classes. We will use the information gathered to further develop our plans and to support our funding applications.

We would welcome approaches from businesses who might be able to support our proposals either through work in kind or via a direct financial contributions. Please contact projectmanager@sherwood-observatory.org.uk if you would like to discuss options.

We have been asked by local residents to support their petition to reduce the speed limit on Coxmoor Road. The committee are in agreement with this aim and want to show their support. The petition only takes a few clicks to complete and is online at:

Our group visits have proved exceptionally popular and unfortunately we are now fully booked for this viewing season, but we are taking bookings for next season which runs from late September until March 2019.

We’re raising money to build a Planetarium on the land next to our Observatory so that we can expand and enhance our astronomy education outreach activities.

If you do any shopping online and would like to help us raise some funds, at no cost to yourself, please register to support us at Easyfundraising. For information about how Easyfundraising works, watch this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn2dsQGAe_w

If you want to get involved, follow this link: http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/invite/PJMHKU/, create an account and choose “Sherwood Observatory Planetarium” as the Cause to support, and we’ll get an extra £1 donated to the fund when you make your first Easyfundraising purchase.

Also, if you're searching the internet, why not use Easysearch instead of your usual search engine and every result clicked will earn half a penny for our fund. It might not sound like much, but think of how many times you search the internet each day...all those halfpennies soon mount up. This is the Easysearch link: http://sherwoodobserv.easysearch.org.uk/